


better late than never (just don’t make me wait forever)

by fullsxn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Character Study, Fix-It, Gay Bucky Barnes, I suck at tagging, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Swearing, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Timeline What Timeline, Trauma, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:13:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28757148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullsxn/pseuds/fullsxn
Summary: After an anger-driven confrontation goes awry, Bucky is given the opportunity of a lifetime — a second chance at what he so stupidly let slip away from him. But it seems there’s more going on in Steve’s head than Bucky anticipated, and it’s going to take more than a fancy monologue and a few shed tears to regain what he lost.One thing’s for sure, though — he let Steve go once, and mark his words, he won’t make that mistake again.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t hate Steve. Bucky doesn’t either, but he’s feeling a lot of shit right now and doesn’t know how to properly express it, so it may come off that way at first. Keep in mind that this is written from Bucky’s perspective and not mine, and therefore I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says/thinks. 
> 
> I also apologise that it may be really out of character — I’m not the greatest at characterization. Enjoy :)

He knows it isn’t fair.

The rage burning in his chest, the dull hurt throbbing in his heart — it isn’t fair. Not to Steve, not to anyone. He _knows_ that, beats himself up about it every day, but he can’t seem to stop, feeling the anger surge inside of him at every chance it gets.

He knows it’s what Steve deserves. A lifetime of selflessness, putting everyone before himself, he deserves a break. He deserves peace. He deserves _Peggy_. Logically, he knows that, because that’s what everyone keeps saying, but he can’t bring himself to truly believe it. That Steve would want to go back. Doesn’t matter the reason. For some reason, he just… can’t wrap his head around it.

“It wasn’t meant to hurt you,” Sam tells him, which he knows too. “Probably didn’t have anything to do with you.”

And it’s supposed to be reassuring, somehow, but it’s not. _Probably didn’t have anything to do with you._ All it does is make him wonder — those years, when he was in the Soul stone — had Steve forgotten about him? Moved on after losing him for a second time? It’s not fair to expect Steve to always be there with him when he has his own life and his own aspirations, he _knows_ that, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. Regardless, Steve still voluntarily left him. Abandoned him. Permanently.

It’s not _fair_. None of it is. Not Bucky’s anger or Steve’s desire for happiness or any of it, really, and he dwells on those wasted years of being a brainwashed super soldier too often, wondering if he’d just been stronger Steve wouldn’t have left. If he wasn’t so messed up. If he wasn’t so fucking pathetic.

Maybe the gaping wound in his heart wouldn’t be there.

Sam goes to visit Steve every other week. Says he’s still his friend and still enjoys his company or something like that. Bucky hadn’t really been listening. He tells him Steve misses him and he wishes he would visit and Sam himself says he’s being salty, getting angry over nothing.

 _Nothing_. Oh, how he wishes it were nothing. As if he doesn’t remember tender kisses in the wee hours of the morning and his own strong arms wrapped around Steve’s tiny frame, so warm and comforting and _safe_. And as much as he wishes, hopes, _prays_ it was nothing, it wasn’t. There’s no way around it. It _wasn’t_ nothing, he’s pretty sure friends don’t make out with each other. If they’d lived in modern times, he hopes they might have been boyfriends. But maybe — maybe Steve would’ve met Peggy anyway. Maybe they would have gotten married and had children like they were supposed to, since they’re a man and a woman and that’s what couples like that do. Maybe Bucky would’ve been shoved to the side anyway.

But those are all “maybe”s, none of them describing the reality he’s currently living in. Here Steve is a ninety-year-old man fresh from a happy — and very heterosexual — marriage, who hasn’t seen Bucky in nearly eighty years and has probably forgotten all about him by now. He wouldn’t be surprised. Eighty years is the entire lifespan of some people, and completely healthy ones at that. After all this time — Bucky can’t even bring himself to ask.

Sam tells him there’s no way Steve’s forgotten about him when he asks to see him all the time, but Bucky knows he knows that’s not what he means. He means he’s forgotten about the birthmark on the side of his thigh and the route they used to walk home from school every day and the address of the apartment they lived in before the war. The little things, the little details, the things that really mattered — Steve’s forgotten all of them. That’s just the way it is. He’s tried to tell Sam this, he really has, but the words come out jumbled and Sam probably thinks he’s going insane again or something. He doesn’t blame him. Most days he wonders the same thing.

He remembers the day Steve left and came back more vividly than he’d like. He’d been expecting it. Steve had told him a few days earlier, and while internally his heart had been shattering, he’d given a thin smile and told him to go for it. Because that’s what he was supposed to do, right? Steve’s his own person, he isn’t Bucky’s property. He can’t control what he does. If Steve wanted to go back in time to be with Peggy then Steve was allowed to go back in time to be with Peggy. It was completely within his right. And like he said — Steve deserved it. Deserves it. He’s done so much for Bucky, for the Avengers, for the world — he deserves rest.

But every time he thinks about it it’s like the temperature has dropped thirty degrees, and it makes him want to claw his hair out and yell at him until his throat is raw and every last word he’s ever wanted to say to Steve has been shouted at the top of his lungs so he’ll never have to look at his stupid fucking face ever again. He wants to scream. Let all his emotions out like a flood. Steve would be angry, of course he would. Bucky’s expected that from the start. But for some reason it feels worth it; like it would finally alleviate some of the heavy, exhausting weight from his chest.

“You’re seriously just going there to yell at him?” Sam deadpans when he explains all this to him. The bus ticket is already paid for and Bucky’s ready, his hair cut and his beard shaved. The anger is strong today, too, and it almost feels like a parasite, eating away at him until there’s nothing left.

Bucky doesn’t miss the sad look on Sam’s face as he lets out an exasperated sigh and nods, slamming the top of the laptop down and swinging his bag over his shoulder. He doesn’t miss it. He just ignores it.

(“Why doesn’t he want to see me?” Steve asked. He didn’t sound _angry_ , not really, just confused. And maybe a little sad.

Sam grimaced. “I mean, in his defense, you did abandon him.”

A heavy silence hung in the air while Steve processed his words. Finally, he said quietly, “No, I didn’t.”

“I’m not going to pick sides here, but yeah. You did.”)

✰

He’s wearing the leather jacket that Sam had gotten him for his birthday — it’s somehow already wrinkled, but Sam’s never commented on it. He hasn’t worn it too much recently, since it’s been way too hot to be wearing anything but your bare ass, but it’s chillier today and on top of that, he wants Steve to think he’s got his shit together. As much as he’s angry at the guy, he’s still his ~~boyfriend~~ childhood best friend. And the last thing he wants is for him to know he’s as royally fucked up as he is.

When he enters Steve’s apartment complex, his stomach starts to churn uncomfortably. _This is a mistake,_ he thinks, _a mistake, a fucking mistake —_

“You going in the elevator?” Bucky whips his head up to see a teenage boy standing next to him, with one earbud in and a bubble of gum sticking out of his mouth. Wordlessly, he nods and follows him in, unfolding the note Sam had given him with Steve’s address and unit number and pushing the button for the seventh floor. _Unit 732_ is scrawled almost illegibly next to it.

When the boy gets out at the fourth floor, Bucky allows himself to mutter a few curses under his breath and tries to stop himself from crumpling the note up and digging his heel into it. He manages to restrain himself long enough that he makes it to the seventh floor, although he feels the anger building inside of him again. It seems to have returned with a vengeance, and in all honesty Bucky’s scared that if he steps into Steve’s apartment he’s going to burst into tears. And Steve will try and comfort him because he’s _Steve_ , always has been and always will be no matter what Bucky does, and all that will do is make him cry harder because he doesn’t deserve Steve. He didn’t back in the war and he doesn’t now.

A minute later, he finds himself standing in front of a freshly painted white door with three gold letters reading _732_ nailed into the front, and he wishes he just went home. But it’s too late now, and he wasted enough money on the bus ticket that he doesn’t want the trip to be for nothing. So he pushes aside any last ounce of pride he has left and knocks on the door — three times, like he did before the war — trying desperately to ignore his breath hitching in his throat.

Sam was right. This was a stupid idea. Is a stupid idea. Why is he even —

The door creaks open and Steve stands there, with his greying hair and wrinkled face and Bucky almost wants to throw up. Considers it, even. The former’s eyes are wide as he surveys the latter, as if he doesn’t believe it’s really him, but he remains silent. He supposes he looks more like the Bucky Steve remembers now that his hair is short and he isn’t going around murdering people anymore, but he sees Steve’s eyes flicker towards his arm and instantly any memory of what Bucky has dubbed “Steve’s Bucky” seems to disappear. He steps aside and Bucky awkwardly enters the apartment, his hands clasped behind his back to stop them from shaking, and Steve motions for him to follow him further into the room.

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

The voice sounds so old and parched and unlike any version of Steve Bucky’s ever known, so much so that he seems almost unrecognizable, but he swallows thickly and tries to sound as indifferent as possible. “Me neither.”

“What are you doing here, Buck?” _Buck_. The nickname rolls off Steve’s tongue as easily as it always has and he almost wants to laugh, tell him he’s not Buck, not anymore, not to _him_ , wants to scream at him that he lost that privilege eighty years ago when he jumped into Peggy’s arms, but he doesn’t. He works his jaw and stares right into Steve’s eyes, such a clear, shimmering blue like they’ve always been.

“I’m here to say goodbye.”

The words come out dryer and shakier than he intended but Steve hears them all the same, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Listen, Steve, you had an entire _life_ without me in it. Voluntarily. You chose to uproot everything you’d worked for and go back to a time when people like us were tortured and killed for being different all because of a girl you knew for a year and kissed once, and you didn’t even fucking hesitate.” He can feel the anger, the parasite growing again. “We don’t know each other anymore. That’s not something you can change. So, goodbye, Steve. Formally.” Steve opens his mouth to respond but Bucky doesn’t let him. “‘Til the end of the line my ass.”

He steps around Steve and storms out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him and heading back towards the elevator. No one else is there.

It almost feels like Steve’s eyes are burning holes in the back of his head, like he’s there with him, but he’s not. And he doesn’t know if he wishes he came back for him or not, but regardless, he didn’t, so he figures he just needs to suck it up and accept it.

Steve’s gone. Maybe not dead — not yet, anyway — but definitely gone. Whoever Bucky knew before the war, during the war, while he was the Winter Soldier — he’s gone. And he’s never coming back.

He wonders if this is how Steve felt when he found out Bucky was still alive. When he found out Bucky had been mercilessly tortured for fifty goddamn years before he woke up from the ice. That his best friend, his soulmate, maybe even his lover, was never going to be the person he fell in love with. But the difference, he supposes, is that Steve saved him. He never gave up on him. He didn’t stop until Bucky was safe, until Bucky was back, safely in his arms.

And Bucky — he just said goodbye.

The image of Steve leaving flashes in his mind and he wants to rip it out of his brain completely so he’ll never have to think about it ever again, but he can’t. He can’t bring himself to do it. Steve’s still his best friend. No matter what he said, what he did — he still cherishes the memories he has of him.

He misses Steve, he thinks. Not the wrinkly old man sitting in unit 732 in that bitchass apartment building or the perfect super soldier with the goddamn shield and the fucking spandex, but Steve. Steve, in all his 5’4” glory, the dumbass from Brooklyn who was “too dumb to run away from a fight.” The kid who would do anything to fight for what he thought was right, even if it became the last thing he ever did.

And he wonders, as he listens to the roar of the Brooklyn streets in front of him with Steve’s fucking apartment building behind him and the image of him yelling at him replaying in his head, if maybe that was the stupidest thing he’s ever done.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Homophobia

Dinner is a blur. Sam was originally going to come over to find out how his, as he had called it, “dumbass plan” went, but Captain America doesn’t work your typical 9-5 job, and had been called away for some sort of emergency that had kept him from following through.

Bucky understands. He does. And Sam’s the perfect guy to be Steve’s successor — righteous, perseverant, he’s got all the right qualities. There’s no one better to fill that role. But there’s something dark, something still _angry_ that burns in Bucky’s chest that says that Sam wouldn’t have even had to take on the mantle of Captain America if Steve hadn’t been a selfish little shit and fucked off back to the 40s. If he hadn’t _left_ them. If he’d actually sat down for one goddamn second and actually considered what the consequences of his actions might be.

But, unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Sam’s still Captain America, Steve’s still old, and Bucky’s still an annoying piece of shit who can apparently hold grudges for months on end. And there’s nothing he can do about it.

He goes to bed that night with memories of Steve swimming in his head and a very, very heavy heart.

✰

There’s someone beside him.

That’s the first thought that passes through his head when he wakes up. His vision is still a bit blurry, his eyes not yet fully adjusted to the light, but Bucky swears his room isn’t usually this bright in the morning. He and Sam had gone to Ikea and purposely bought dark, thick curtains for him for this exact reason, so to see them randomly failing to serve their purpose is incredibly weird.

But nothing, truly nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he looked around.

This is definitely not the apartment he and Sam decorated together.

For one thing, his alarm is shrill — a loud, very obnoxious ringing that he’s sure he didn’t put as his ringtone. The bed is lumpy, too, and the blanket is rough and thin. The person next to him (who Bucky hasn’t yet glanced at out of fear) rolls over and the mattress lets out a sickening creak.

 _I’m dreaming,_ he thinks. _That’s the only explanation. I’m dreaming and it’s painful and_ fuck, _why won’t I wake up —_

“… Bucky?”

Shakily, his eyes flicker to his left, and there, in the flesh, is Steve Rogers.

But not _old_ Steve Rogers. Not the wrinkled, deteriorating traitor Bucky had left in Unit 732. Not even Captain America. But _Steve,_ with his anemia and asthma and bright blond hair — he’s here. Right here. Beside him.

It’s only when Steve frowns at him and asks, “you okay, Buck?” that he realises he’s been staring at him in awe, and he blinks slowly and nods, not sure if he’s drugged or dreaming or _what._

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” His voice sounds distant, faraway as if it isn’t even coming from him at all.

What the fuck is going on?

Steve still looks suspicious, but he shrugs and throws the blankets off of him, standing up and clearing his throat before beginning to rummage through the chest of drawers sitting in the corner of the room. He’s humming something to himself, but for the life of him Bucky couldn’t tell you what. His memory has been mostly restored, but there are some things that always seem to slip his mind — namely, music.

“Steve,” he says slowly, still in shock, and for some reason the name sounds foreign on his tongue, “what, uh… what day is it?”

At that, Steve turns around and frowns again. He jerks his head towards the calendar hanging on the wall. “March 10th,” he responds. “You know, your birthday?”

“Right,” he mutters, and reaches out to pull the blanket to the side. What meets his eyes, though, is a completely flesh and intact hand, no metal at all, and he almost lets out a scream — probably would have, too, if Steve wasn’t standing a few feet away from him and completely unaware of Bucky’s current predicament. He flexes his fingers, staring down at them in shock. What happened to his body? And his metal arm? What the fuck is even going on?

Careful not to seem too weirded out, he quietly slips out of bed and makes his way over to the tiny bathroom on the other side of the room. There’s a mirror above the sink, cracked in places and scratched in others. The reflection that stares back at him is somewhat blurry thanks to the blemishes etched into the glass, but as he squints at it, his heart nearly stops.

He looks… _young._ His hair is short and neat, his stubble almost completely invisible, and the dark circles that rimmed his eyes for as long as he can remember are so faint they almost aren’t even there. His arm is back and Steve is in the other room and _fuck,_ he could stay this way forever.

As soon as the thought appears in his head, though, his chest seems to constrict. This is exactly what he’d yelled at and cut ties with Steve for doing, and yet here he is wishing he was given the same opportunity. He curses at himself and clenches his fists, feeling like a complete and utter asshole, and he swallows thickly as he dwells on his clearly unhinged subconscious. 

“Something wrong with your face?”

He whirls around to see Steve standing beside him, a small grin tugging at the corners of his lips.

Bucky smiles back, and it feels so good to see Steve again he almost kisses him on the spot. But he doesn’t, figures it would instantly give away that something isn’t right, and swallows hard as he turns back to the mirror. “Nah. Just… just a pimple.”

Steve, though, apparently thinks this is a great idea, and reaches up and plants a kiss on Bucky’s lips before patting him on the shoulder and grinning like the world is in his hands. “Well, I think you’re beautiful,” he says. “Happy birthday, Buck.”

“Thanks, Stevie.”

He returns Steve’s kiss with one of his own, his hand slowly slipping down to intertwine with Steve’s. Having his arm back is such a weird feeling that he doesn’t exactly know how to describe it, but he knows that he’s missed this. Holding hands. Kissing. It was such a blissful time, before the war, when they could come home to their safe haven and pretend like they were the only two people in the world. When they could hold each other in the dark, Bucky’s arms wrapped around Steve and his face grazing the wisps of hair on the back of his head. It was Bucky and Steve against the world, it always was, and the crushing realisation that Steve gave that up for a girl puts an immediate stop to his daydreaming.

“Here.” Bucky glances up to see Steve holding something out to him — a gift. Which, if it really is his birthday, makes sense. It’s wrapped in old newspaper and hastily tied together with a fraying piece of twine, and the memory burns so fresh in Bucky’s mind it’s like it happened yesterday. Because he _remembers_ this. He doesn’t know exactly when, just that it was sometime after he and Steve moved in together and before he was drafted, but he remembers it. As clear as day.

It was a notebook, he remembers, filled with Steve’s sketches and old baseball game tickets and little things that Steve said reminded him of Bucky. _Like a scrapbook, but without any shitty pictures of us,_ Steve had explained with a laugh, blue eyes wide and hopeful as Bucky fingered through the book. The memory is one of his favourites, he knows, and reliving it makes his heart swell. It’s been far too long since he’d felt like this.

Sure enough, as he unties the twine and unwraps the newspaper, there lies the notebook, thick and bound with brown leather. It’s less battered than he remembers, some of the creases on the spine and the rips in the pages not there, but it’s so familiar, so _intimate_ that he just wants to hold it to his chest and soak up every last stroke of Steve’s pencil and ounce of love he’d put into the gift.

He doesn’t, though. Instead, he looks back up at Steve, still grinning, and says, “Thanks, Stevie. I love it.” Few words, but Steve’s known him long enough that he can tell Bucky’s never been more grateful in his life.

“So, you going to work today?”

Startled by Steve’s voice, he looks back up at him and blinks, allowing his brain to process the question for a moment before answering. “Uh. Yeah, yeah I am.” He racks his brain for the address of his old job but comes up short, internally praying that there’s some indicator of its location somewhere so he won’t have to ditch. His memory may still be a bit fuzzy, but he knows damn well he and Steve were dirt poor before the war, and they needed all the money they could get. Bucky couldn’t afford to just not go to work no matter how much he wished he could take the day off.

“Well, you better get going then. It’s almost eight o’clock already,” Steve says, and Bucky nods, kissing Steve’s forehead again before changing into what seems to be his work clothes and heading out the front door. _This is weird,_ he thinks, _really, really fucking weird._

Now that Steve is out of view, he leans against the brick wall of the apartment building and tries to steady his breathing, finally allowing himself to freak out. Bucky remembers this street. It’s the street he and Steve lived on before the war — or, rather, right now. It’s weird seeing it like this — the way it was, before, well, everything. He’s visited a few times, stared at the tall condominium towering over him that had replaced the building he’d once called home. He hadn’t been too upset about it initially — it was a shithole, if he’s being perfectly honest — but it had been home, and the more he thinks about it the more he’s secretly glad to be back here. It’s familiar, in a way that his new apartment just _isn’t,_ no matter how much he and Sam had tried to make it his. Even its many issues made him feel more at ease.

Part of him wonders if this is what Steve had craved so much when he’d decided to go back. Familiarity. Comfort. Security. He understands a bit better now, perhaps, but still… he isn’t sure if he’d want to stay here permanently. Maybe. He doesn’t know.

His thoughts are immediately interrupted, though, as a pained groan suddenly sounds in his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a dark alleyway across the street, illuminated enough by the sun looming overhead that he can vaguely make out a fight happening. His mind begins to race, his eyes instinctively flickering back up to the apartment as if somehow his quick glance at their curtain-covered windows will confirm whether Steve is still up there or not. Quickly, he jogs across the road, squinting at the alley as he nears it and trying to make himself seem as intimidating as possible.

There are three people there. Young, couldn’t be any older than Bucky himself, and one of them is getting the shit beat out of them by the other two. But it’s not Steve. This guy has brown hair, almost chestnut, not Steve’s golden blond, and even though one of his eyes is already starting to swell he can see that they’re a deep, rich brown. Definitely not Steve. But still someone who needs help.

Suddenly, something escapes one of the other mans’ lips. Something Bucky hasn’t been called in a very long time. A word Bucky hates vehemently, with such a burning passion he almost starts to see red. He grabs the man’s shirt and yanks him backwards, slamming him into the wall, and before he can think twice Bucky’s fist is connecting with his jaw and blood is flying out of his mouth. 

He slides down against the brick, crumpling like a piece of paper, and Bucky turns back to the other two men standing before him — Not-Steve and the other asshole. Not-Steve has his fingers tightly clamped on his nose, which is gushing with blood. He nods wordlessly at Bucky. 

The asshole looks at him, fear in his eyes, and dashes out of the alley without another word. 

With the first guy unconscious, it’s just Bucky and Not-Steve, and he swallows hard. “Sorry that happened.”

Not-Steve gives a half-hearted shrug, and he looks so defeated that Bucky’s heart almost breaks. “S’okay. I’m used to it.” 

“That doesn’t… that doesn’t make it okay,” Bucky responds carefully, hoping Not-Steve knows what he’s getting at. Life in the twenty-first century definitely has issues of its own, but knowing that people like him and Steve were no longer being killed for being themselves — could get _married,_ of all things, even adopt kids — had shed some light on what he’d tried so hard to repress for so many years. He doesn’t know if Not-Steve is actually, you know, _not heterosexual_ , but regardless, he wants him to know it’s okay if he is. Because as much as he and Steve had those blissful nights in the apartment, where it was just them and it was almost euphoric, Bucky spent so much time feeling so incredibly uncomfortable in his own skin, wishing he was someone else entirely, that those moments are sometimes entirely forgotten, and Not-Steve doesn’t deserve that. No one does. Bucky definitely needed someone to tell him that when he was younger, and he figures that maybe Not-Steve does as well.

A sigh escapes Not-Steve’s lips, and he sticks out his hand. “Max,” he says.

Bucky decides to take the purposeful neglect of his previous comment with a grain of salt and dutifully shakes Not-Steve — Max’s hand. “Bucky.”

Max nods. “Thanks for — you know.” He gestures vaguely at the man Bucky had knocked out, still lying limp on the ground beside them, and Bucky gives him a small smile.

“No problem.” He pauses for a second, debating whether to continue. “Uh — what he told you. That… that wasn’t okay. He shouldn’t have called you that.”

At that, Max’s face hardens. “What, you don’t think being a homo is okay either?”

“What? No! No, that’s not — ” Bucky sighs, trying to collect his thoughts, and finally locks eyes with Max. “It’s just. There are better ways to, you know, describe someone. He didn’t need to use that word. So I’m sorry he did that.”

“Oh.” Max’s expression softens, and his mouth curves upwards in a ghost of a smile. “Thanks.” He nods at him again and waves goodbye as he runs out of the alley, turning the corner and disappearing into the busy, crowded Brooklyn streets.

 _And that_ , Bucky’s mind supplies, his ears still ringing with _that word, is why I don’t want to stay here forever._

Because as much as the apartment is familiar and he misses his arm and Steve is here, not going anywhere, he knows he couldn’t stay here. Here, he’s an outsider. Here, he isn’t like other people. He’s not like them and they’re not like him, and no matter what Bucky does about it that isn’t going to change. Having to hide himself, put up a mask so no one would find out what — _who_ he was — was absolutely exhausting, and the last thing he wants is to have to do that again.

So he doesn’t want to stay here. He wants to be free, express who he is. He wants to kiss Steve in public and not have to worry. He wants to get married, have kids, live his life without being in constant fear.

And here — that just isn’t possible.

He’s angry again, the parasite having returned — but it’s for a different reason now. He’s not angry at Steve — or, at least, not this one — but rather the world. Society. _People._ It’s a tired anger, running so deep in Bucky’s veins it’s like it’s been there forever, and he’s only been here an hour and he’s already so, so tired of this decade. Any excitement he may have felt previously has been washed away, replaced by the same, sickening fear he’d gotten so used to feeling before the war. 

He glances down at the man still lying on the ground, then back up at the streets. The apartment glimmers from its place across the street like a beacon. Steve’s there somewhere, through all the hatred in the world, and as he takes a deep breath, he figures maybe he can get through this. For him.

It’ll always be for Steve. No matter what, it’ll always be for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this was inaccurate. I always get nervous posting things about homophobia because despite the fact that I’m bi, I’m very much closeted, and therefore haven’t had too much firsthand experience with it. My knowledge on homophobia specifically in the 30s and 40s is also very limited, and for that I apologise. Feel free to correct me if anything over the duration of this story seems wrong in that regard.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise, not much happens in this chapter! But I felt it was appropriate for there to be some more inner monologue for Bucky and also some setup for what’s to come. Enjoy!

_ March 10th,  _ he remembers _.  _ It’s his birthday, yes, but which year? He’d looked incredibly young when he’d examined himself in the mirror and he couldn’t have been older than twenty-two, which means it’s sometime around 1939 — right when the war began.

He feels sick just thinking about it. Sure, he hadn’t been drafted until ‘43, but the stress was definitely there prior to that, and eventually the dread seemed to have permanently settled in his stomach. It became a dull ache, a throb in his gut. It always seemed to flare up when he saw enlistment flyers — which, just for the record, were better at guilt-tripping than he would ever be — and he’d go home to Steve that day wishing he could disappear. 

And then there was Steve, always so eager to  _ fight  _ and  _ serve  _ and give everything he had for his country, ready to throw himself into action no matter what. It didn’t matter that running down the stairs made him have an asthma attack or that he almost died from pneumonia every year — he was willing no matter what. How was Bucky supposed to compete with that?

Even now, as much as he wishes he had Steve’s spirit, his passion — he just doesn’t. He’s simple. He wants to live in a shitty apartment with his boyfriend and give each other notebooks with drawings and sweep him off of his feet after work and just  _ live,  _ just exist in a frozen bubble of time where everything is good and fine and happy and the war is nothing but a distant memory.

That’s all he wants, really. So simple, yet so complicated. So easy, yet so difficult.

He digs around in his pocket for a nickel before buying a newspaper and scanning the words lining the top —  _ March 10th, 1939.  _ So he’s officially twenty-two today. Twenty-two and thriving, but only for four more years before, well… everything.

He never makes it to work. It’s not like he remembers where it is, only that it was at the “docks” — whatever that means. Docks were for boats and shit, right? Like, people left their boats there? Did he… man boats, or something? Fuck. He tries to remember, he really does, but he’s been dealing with this shit for long enough that he knows the more he presses on the more hazy the memory’s going to get, so he forces himself to forget it and instead finds himself standing in front of a diner — one that he’s sure he’s been to before. 

It’s small and quaint and has a nice homey feel to it, with vanilla coloured walls and purple leather booths, and as he slides into one and glances down at the menu, typical, average diner food. The twenty-first century has restaurants, all right, but diners like this one have become scarce, and it just feels so weird to be back at one that all he does is stare blankly at the paper on the table and try to take everything in without passing out.

He should stop using the word weird, but he doesn’t really know how else to describe it. Because that’s what it is — it’s  _ weird.  _ He’s almost 99.9% sure the time machine was destroyed after Steve used it, and even if it hadn’t been, all the Pym Particles were gone. Not to mention that even then, he sure as hell didn’t use one. He’d just  _ gone to sleep,  _ like he does every night, and randomly woken up back in 1939 without any reasoning or explanation.

Maybe it’s an illusion, he considers. Someone who snuck into his bedroom and fucked with his mind so much he thought he was back with Steve before the war, and before he knows it he’ll wake up captured by the supervillain of the day, being asked if it was nice taking a trip down memory lane. So maybe none of it’s real. Maybe he’s still in that bedroom with the dark Ikea curtains and he’s trapped in his own mind, a prisoner in his muddled memories. Maybe he’s slowly dying — 

“Sir?”

He shoots his head upwards to lock eyes with a waitress, with curly auburn hair and bright red lipstick. “Are you alright? Can I take your order?”

“My — ?” He falters for a second, nearly forgetting why he was here in the first place, but he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and reopens them before nodding. “Right. Yeah, sure.”

He places an order for a simple bowl of cereal — “yeah, just a quick breakfast before heading off to work, thank you” — and goes back to pondering what the hell happened and why it happened to  _ him.  _

He pinches himself — more than once, actually, just for good measure — and curses under his breath when he pries his eyes open and sees that he’s still sitting in the fucking diner with the fucking cream-coloured walls and lavender leather surrounding him. He almost wants to chuck the cutlery sitting on the table at the wall, but manages to restrain himself. That would cause a scene — the last thing he wants it to draw attention to himself, especially when he’s still feeling somewhat erratic.

“Here’s your cereal, sir,” comes a voice from beside him, and he realises the waitress is already back with his food. He pays and tips her and curses again as she walks away, rubbing his temples and letting out a frustrated sigh. It’s funny, he thinks, how  _ this  _ is what Steve wanted.  _ This  _ is what he gave up literally everything for. Shitty cereal and homophobia and no modern technology (Who would willingly give up the Internet?). The image of Max getting beat up in the alley throbs in his head, and he almost feels sick at the thought of having to live here again. He isn’t sure if he could handle it. No, scratch that — he definitely wouldn’t be able to handle it. 

He leaves the diner a minute later, deciding that no matter what the hell happened, some research is certainly in order. Whatever happened must be some sort of known phenomenon, and there must be some way to reverse it. There has to be. He considers telling Steve about it and enlisting his help, but he shoots the idea down as quickly as it forms. Steve doesn’t need to get dragged into this, he decides, especially considering he would probably think he was insane and kick him out of the apartment. Which would do nothing but slow and hinder his getting back home. The thought of keeping something like this from him — something so important and impactful — makes his chest constrict, but he knows it’s what needs to be done.

He takes a deep breath and heads toward the library. That’s the logical place to start, since his phone and computer and every single piece of modern technology he owns are about eighty years away from him. When he’d first started to recover and was actually properly learning about the wonders of the twenty-first century, things like Google and Amazon had seemed like mere fever dreams, and he’d admittedly been a little weirded out, but now he’d give anything to have service like that back at his fingertips. Books are great, but fuck, the Internet is a million times more useful.

For now, though, the library is all he has, so he wanders the streets of Brooklyn until he finds it and steps inside with a glimmer of hope forming inside of him. Maybe there’s still a chance he could get back. He’d never publicly admit that he misses Sam and the other Avengers, but he  _ does,  _ and the thought of being back with them in 2023 pushes him enough to take a deep breath and begin his research. He’d told Steve he was going to work, and this  _ is  _ work, technically, as long as you consider “work” to be a subjective term, so he tamps down the guilt clawing at his throat and begins to scan the bookshelves lining the walls.  _ This’ll have to do,  _ he thinks bitterly. He makes a mental note never to take his phone for granted ever again.

As he flips through book after book, page after page, he grows weary. The clock on the wall above the door reads 12:04 — he’s been here for three whole hours and has found next to nothing. He slams the book he’s currently reading closed with a frustrated groan and chews on one of his nails, glancing down at the table where books are piled haphazardly on top of each other. One of the stacks is so tall it looks as if it’s threatening to fall at any second, but Bucky can’t bring himself to care. He’s  _ stuck  _ here. Urban legends, apparently, didn’t include any sort of time travel, not when the Pym Particles wouldn’t be used by the Avengers for eighty fucking years.

Maybe he’d been injected with one of them in his sleep? Is that possible? He doesn’t think so, but then again, people are always trying out new shit like that. It wouldn’t necessarily be surprising. But why him and not, say,  _ literally anyone else?  _ It’s not that he’s exactly a secret — the Captain America museum made sure of that — but he doesn’t think he’s exactly famous enough to warrant a potentially fatal time travel experiment done on him.

Then again, he remembers, it  _ was  _ him who was experimented on by Zola in Azzano.

Thinking of that makes him want to vomit, though, so he pushes the thought aside and opens the book again, biting his lip as he continues to read.

There has to be something.

✰

There’s nothing.

Zero. Zilch. Absolutely fucking  _ nothing.  _

He reads about shapeshifters and dragons and Bloody Mary, but nothing on time travel. He vaguely recalls watching a movie about it with Sam once — Back to the Future, was it? — and wishes the flux capacitor was a real thing so he could zap himself back to his apartment in seconds. He lets out a bitter chuckle at the memory. These things had seemed so trivial, so mundane, and he finds himself longing for the simplicity of it all.

By now it’s been hours, and he’s absolutely exhausted. His eyes are burning from reading and all he wants to do is go back to the apartment and sink into Steve’s embrace, away from this new-yet-old confusing world. But he can’t. Not until he figures out what happened and how to fix it.

_ Steve could help you,  _ says a smarter, more rational part of his mind.  _ You can’t do this on your own. _

He swallows hard. It’s true. Steve  _ would  _ be able to help him, and he probably wouldn’t be able to do this on his own. But he’s so prideful, so dead set on proving his worth that the thought of even bringing it up makes him uncomfortable.

He wants to. He wants to so, so bad.

He slams his hands down on the table as he stands up and lets out an audible sigh, exiting the library and begrudgingly beginning to walk back to the apartment. He just hopes that Steve’s still there.

When he arrives in front of their door fifteen minutes later, he feels the same, sickening sort of regret he felt before he went into Steve’s apartment to yell at him. Except this time, he’s not effectively ending their friendship, so… he should feel differently. Why doesn’t he feel differently? Why is he — 

“Bucky?”

_ Fuck.  _ He turns around and sees Steve standing there, sketchbook in one hand and what looks like a grocery bag in the other. His forehead is creased in confusion, as if he’s finally noticing that something isn’t right. “I, uh — ”

“Why don’t you just… go inside? You know that’s your apartment, too,” Steve says with a laugh, and Bucky steps out of the way as he approaches the door and fiddles with the handle for a moment before swinging the door open and waltzing in without hesitation.

Which, for Steve, makes sense. He lives here. He’s lived here for years, now,  _ with Bucky,  _ and it’s his apartment. His. And — supposedly, Bucky’s as well.

He steps inside, heart pounding against his rib cage and the explanation burning on the tip of his toungue. The words are there,  _ right there,  _ and yet… he can’t bring himself to say them.

“Steve,” he says finally, after a minute and a half of awkward silence, “I, uh… I have to tell you something.”

Steve stops from where he’s taking the groceries out of the bag and looks up at him. “Yeah?”

_ This is it,  _ he thinks,  _ come on, Bucky, you can do this. Just fucking say it. It’s not that hard, what’s  _ wrong  _ with you —  _

“I’m not… I’m not the Bucky you know.”


End file.
